


brief candles

by oonaseckar



Category: White Collar
Genre: Actors, Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Professors, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Gen, M/M, Professor Peter Burke, Professors, References to Shakespeare, Shakespearean Language, Time Travel, Writers, scholar Peter Burke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25286302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar
Summary: Neal is a disowned rich man's son, who runs off to London to be an actor – in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, in the 16th century.And Professor Peter Burke, toiling over a book on the actors, buildings and theatre-craft of Shakespeare's theatrical productions, comes across a mention of him and is fascinated.  He finds a way to go back in time to see Neal act...  And a little more than that.
Relationships: Elizabeth Burke/Peter Burke, Neal Caffrey & June Ellington, Neal Caffrey & Kate Moreau, Neal Caffrey & Mozzie, Neal Caffrey/Kate Moreau, Peter Burke & Neal Caffrey, Peter Burke/Neal Caffrey
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	brief candles

A scholar of Shakespeare can never be satisfied with the facts as they are known – must always hunger for more detail, more certainty, a closer view of the personal life, as much as the professional output of the Bard of Avon. And especially, a scholar still working on his Phd., and hoping for tenure and acclaim for his original and groundbreaking new take on the subject, once published.

Peter was no different in this respect. He sat at his desk in the tiny office he was grudgingly allotted in place of a proper permanent home at his university, and sighed. It was a lovely spring day, and he was in no position to go out and appreciate it the way it ought to be and deserved to be appreciated. Not in the final year of his untenured associate professorship, with the months winging past, and his new work looking ever thinner and more patched-together, as the deadline for presentation and defence, representation and publication of it loomed closer, ominously closer.

But as he shuffled pages, and flipped through tabs on his computer screen, he couldn't help but sneak a look out the tiny window of his academic hovel. It really was gorgeous out there... and his brain had seized up like someone had poured sugar in a car's engine. He couldn't squeeze an original or even clear-sighted thought out of it, not to save his life, not right this minute.

Really, if he nipped out to the campus café for ten minutes, got some caffeine in his system and let his brain recharge, it would be all to the good. That was his reasoning, and it was persuasive enough that he was up out of his chair and grabbing his jacket from behind the door, three seconds later.

The café itself – the one for the plebs, frequented by undergrads and tech staff rather more than by university academic staff – was steamy and scented with fresh-baked hot cross buns inside, and Peter felt completely justified in his decision. A blood-sugar boost as well as caffeine, and he'd be a theorizing, fact-weaving, analytical demon, once he got back to his _magnum opus._ That was for sure. Well, he felt reasonably sure of it.

At any rate, the hot cross buns were wonderful, thickly buttered, and washed down with a latte, as he squashed himself down in the far corner seat. And wished, a bit, that he'd brought a book with him – preferably something trashy and non-improving, for maximum recreational value. But he could always people-watch out the window, and that would still be better than being stuck in his little box, and feeling as if his brain was a clockwork toy that had been over-wound and stuck. Sometimes he began feeling as if nothing more could ever be known about old Will Shakespeare – and more than that, that he was starting not to _care_ about whether it could or not.


End file.
